A person in crisis has several ways to call for help, such as the 911 emergency system which is intended to being public safety officers and/or professional medical responders as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the police may be at a considerable distance, resulting in long response times, or may not respond at all in under-staffed precincts. Medical rescue personnel may also be far away and unable to render aid quickly. In underserved areas, first aid promptly applied by someone nearby could mean the difference between life and death. Similarly, in the event of a violent crime in progress, the timely arrival of help to the victim can be life saving.
For medical emergencies, many systems exist in which a pendant or wall button alerts a radio receiver provided to an individual by the company. Providers include Bay Alarm Medical, Life Alert and ADT. The range of these radio devices extends, in most best-case scenarios, to 1000 feet. Coverage is limited by the range of the company's installed receivers. In turn these receivers are connected to phone lines, or through dedicated cell services. This service comes at a high monthly cost to the user because of the infrastructure required to support the system. Systems like this are represented by several publication patent applications. (Peabody US2011281550, Spence US2010184401, and Pellegrino US2005221796).
Similarly there are buttons that call for police assistance which are handled by ADT and other security companies. These buttons also have the same limitation of range from the base receiver that the medical alert systems do, and the same expensive infrastructure costs. They also have the limitation that they depend on the proximity and availability of public safety personnel. There are also systems that have been made using multiple cameras coordinated by central locations manned and, operated by law enforcement officers as described in Thomas US201079649. However, these are command and control top down systems, and do not facilitate a bottom-up locally networked community volunteer response.
The inevitable delays and limited availability of response from public safety officers is a problem. The cost of having professional guards is also usually prohibitive. Therefore communities have sometimes formed neighborhood watch groups so that members of the community can watch for criminal activity and then notify police and warn other members of the watch. They currently generally employ telephones and radios to issue a request for assistance and alert. However, this system is cumbersome and prone to inefficiency in contacting and coordinating an appropriate response. Furthermore, current emergency alert systems generally rely on voice transmission entirely, which limits emergency response to times and locations with adequate cell phone reception to understand voices.
The existing systems also do not allow for the efficient collection and storage of information associated with the emergency that could prove crucial in the crime analysis or in the determination of an appropriate response.
There are also systems which broadcast alarms to communities via cellphone in the event of a natural disaster such as a tornado, power outage, or earthquake, as well as man-made disasters such as terrorism. Individuals are contacted and informed of the emergency based on their location. Amber alerts also broadcast alarms to individuals based in part on their location. One publication patent application in particular broadcasts via cellphone text to the deaf community based on their proximity to a natural disaster (Roin et al. US 2011045847).
The current means of notifying individuals of an emergency does not allow for immediate response from someone nearby nor does it allow for coordination between local community members who wish to assist. It does not provide the information system solution that is needed for optional signaling of alarm, coordination of local response, nor storage of relevant information needed to properly analyze and optimize an appropriate response in real time.
To improve emergency response service and reach an appropriate group of local responders, a system facilitating community support for emergencies is needed. It should operate on ubiquitous smart phone or cell phone hardware, devices taking advantage of cell and WiFi coverage, and web browsers via internet service providers and cable. Delivery of assistance requests would be based on geo-location and type of emergency as well as voluntary participation in responder groups, to ensure the individual in crisis receives the most prompt response.